We are living in an increasingly complex world that involves many agents and interactions between agents. But individual decisions and actions, left alone, do not necessarily give rise to optimal system-level outcomes. In this seminar, we will look at the role of policy from a complex adaptive system’s perspective and discuss how to use agent-based modeling (ABM) as a tool for analyzing complex adaptive systems especially for the purpose of policy analysis. I will present some ABM examples to illustrate the use of agent-based modeling for policy analysis, its advantages of representing diverse agents, interactions among agents and between agents and the environment, emergence and feedback, as well as multiple policy effects. I will also discuss the major challenges of agent-based modeling as a tool for policy analysis.

        Dr. Qing Tian is an assistant professor in the Department of Computational Social Science at George Mason University. Her research integrates social, economic, environmental, and institutional perspectives and combines computer modeling with other methods (surveys, interviews, and spatial analysis) to examine development and land use in less developed places and sustainability of human-environment systems. She is particularly interested in complex systems and policy and, related to this, human cognition and decision making. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Beijing University, an M.S. in Cartography and Remote Sensing from Chinese Academy of Sciences and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. After completion of her PhD, she studied with Bob Axelrod as a postdoc in the Ford School of Public Policy. At the University of Michigan, she also worked closely with people at the Center for the Study of Complex Systems, such as John Holland. Her professional experiences include working as an assistant research professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China), a research fellow at the International Center for Science and High Technology/United Nations Industrial Organization (Trieste, Italy) and a software engineer for VERITAS Software (Reston, VA).